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THE NOTE BOOK OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM EATER.

BY
THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

CONTENTS.

THREE MEMORABLE MURDERS
TRUE RELATIONS OF THE BIBLE TO MERELY HUMAN SCIENCE
LITERARY HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES
THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY
MILTON vs. SOUTHEY AND LANDOR
FALSIFICATION OF ENGLISH HISTORY
A PERIPATETIC PHILOSOPHER
ON SUICIDE
SUPERFICIAL KNOWLEDGE
ENGLISH DICTIONARIES
DRYDEN'S HEXASTICH
POPE'S RETORT UPON ADDISON

THREE MEMORABLE MURDERS.

A SEQUEL TO 'MURDER CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS.' [1]

[1854.]

It is impossible to conciliate readers of so saturnine and gloomy a class,
that they cannot enter with genial sympathy into any gaiety whatever, but,
least of all, when the gaiety trespasses a little into the province of the
extravagant. In such a case, not to sympathize is not to understand; and
the playfulness, which is not relished, becomes flat and insipid, or
absolutely without meaning. Fortunately, after all such churls have
withdrawn from my audience in high displeasure, there remains a large
majority who are loud in acknowledging the amusement which they have
derived from a former paper of mine, 'On Murder considered as one of the
Fine Arts;' at the same time proving the sincerity of their praise by one
hesitating expression of censure. Repeatedly they have suggested to me,
that perhaps the extravagance, though clearly intentional, and forming one
element in the general gaiety of the conception, went too far. I am not
myself of that opinion; and I beg to remind these friendly censors, that
it is amongst the direct purposes and efforts of this bagatelle to
graze the brink of horror, and of all that would in actual realization be
most repulsive. The very excess of the extravagance, in fact, by
suggesting to the reader continually the mere aeriality of the entire
speculation, furnishes the surest means of disenchanting him from the
horror which might else gather upon his feelings. Let me remind such
objectors, once for all, of Dean Swift's proposal for turning to account
the supernumerary infants of the three kingdoms, which, in those days,
both at Dublin and at London, were provided for in foundling hospitals, by
cooking and eating them. This was an extravaganza, though really bolder
and more coarsely practical than mine, which did not provoke any
reproaches even to a dignitary of the supreme Irish church; its own
monstrosity was its excuse; mere extravagance was felt to license and
accredit the little jeu d'esprit , precisely as the blank impossibilities
of Lilliput, of Laputa, of the Yahoos, &c., had licensed those. If,
therefore, any man thinks it worth his while to tilt against so mere a
foam bubble of gaiety as this lecture on the aesthetics of murder, I
shelter myself for the moment under the Telamonian shield of the Dean.
But, in reality, my own little paper may plead a privileged excuse for its
extravagance, such as is altogether wanting to the Dean's. Nobody can
pretend, for a moment, on behalf of the Dean, that there is any ordinary
and natural tendency in human thoughts, which could ever turn to infants
as articles of diet; under any conceivable circumstances, this would be
felt as the most aggravated form of cannibalism cannibalism applying
itself to the most defenceless part of the species. But, on the other
hand, the tendency to a critical or aesthetic valuation of fires and
murders is universal. If you are summoned to the spectacle of a great
fire, undoubtedly the first impulse is to assist in putting it out. But
that field of exertion is very limited, and is soon filled by regular
professional people, trained and equipped for the service. In the case of
a fire which is operating upon private property, pity for a neighbor's
calamity checks us at first in treating the affair as a scenic spectacle.
But perhaps the fire may be confined to public buildings. And in any case,
after we have paid our tribute of regret to the affair, considered as a
calamity, inevitably, and without restraint, we go on to consider it as a
stage spectacle... Continue reading book >>